Hopes that dozens of lifeline bus services could be restored in the Bristol region after being axed have been dealt a blow. The boss of the West of England Combined Authority (Weca), which is in charge of transport, says there are a “significant number of hurdles” to propping up loss-making routes by redirecting government cash away from “new and innovative” ideas, such as the controversial Birthday Bus Pass scheme and the dial-a-minibus WESTlink.
Last month the Department for Transport announced it was relaxing the rules on what a major pot of money called the Bus Service Improvement Plan could be spent on. Previously it could not be used to pay for regular timetabled supported services, which are subsidised by local councils because they do not make money for the operators and are often important routes in rural areas.
Weca and North Somerset Council jointly received £105million in BSIP from the Government 15 months ago, and while the change in rules applies only to the revenue – day-to-day – part of the grant, this still totals £57million. But councillors were told at a meeting on Monday, July 3, that saving or restoring buses recently scrapped across the region was far from straightforward and that careful thought was needed before cash was withdrawn from plans already in the pipeline to improve services for passengers in other ways.
Read more: Axed bus routes to cut-off Bristol areas could be reinstated after government U-turn
The combined authority’s top officer, interim acting chief executive Richard Ennis, told Weca audit committee: “We could potentially use that money for supported services. The DfT has made it quite clear that value for money is a significant consideration in making any decisions to undertake that support and we have to go back to the DfT to move money within that BSIP programme across to supported services, so there are a significant number of hurdles for us to get over.
“BSIP is a very innovative programme, so we are doing innovative things. That is not as easy a thing as something that has been in the system for 10, 20, 30 or indeed 100 years, so we try to make that comparator between ‘innovative’ versus things that have been ongoing in supported services for some time.
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“We will be having those conversations through our mayor [Dan Norris] and ultimately through the [Weca] committee if we have to make a decision at committee, and we are doing work around that. It’s a welcome change in many respects but it’s capped in terms of the revenue bit.”
He said one major issue was that Weca was 15 months into the 36-month BSIP programme, “so we need to carefully consider the existing programme and how much we could move across”. Mr Ennis said: “The other key point is that the BSIP money lasts for this financial year and next financial year so we need to be thinking not just about short-term but also medium- and longer-term transport needs of the region to make sure we do the best for the region.
“So it comes with challenges, it comes with benefits and we need to do a lot of work to make sure it lands in the right place.” Last month, Labour metro mayor Mr Norris, the elected head of the combined authority, told a Weca committee meeting – comprising the Weca mayor and the leaders of Bristol, South Gloucestershire and Bath & North East Somerset councils – that the information he was given from ministers in June about how the cash could be used “doesn’t make me hugely enthused or encouraged”.
He said he had been lobbying the government hard for more flexibility but made no commitment to use the funding on subsidised buses. Mr Norris said he wanted the local councils to meet him halfway and go 50/50 on keeping some of the routes running that they considered vital.
"But what I can't just do is give loads of money over to just propping up a system that will stop when that money stops,” he added. The BSIP money runs out in March 2025.
Bristol Live is currently running a campaign calling for Better Buses for Bristol and the surrounding area.
